Think it’s hard to spot the subtle but telltale signs of a relationship beginning to unravel? What about picking up on those latent cues in the office that your job is about to be cut? Without inside information or living through like experiences time and again, both are more difficult than they appear. Now imagine what it must be like for parents of autistic children trying to identify those first signs in their son or daughter after the child has reached some of the baby milestones. Hard doesn’t begin to describe how ill equipped most adults are for the task, particularly first time parents.
At the beginning of the decade, my wife and I were first timers. And though looking back on the humbling experience of discovering that our son was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), one month after his third birthday, we fell into the trap that we knew more than we did. Arrogance from education or professional background wasn’t the root cause of our oversight. No. Proximity is a more apt word to describe what happened to us, and most parents of spectrum disorder children. You stand too close to the subject to see. This holds especially true in the regressive form of autism.
Following a speedy, natural childbirth without complication, our son, Fridrik, achieved many infant milestones, from crawling at the proper age and eating solid foods, to pointing and responding to his name. In that magical first year, we were so caught up in the hoopla of being first time parents, in watching him grow and learn that it never occurred to us that anything was wrong. In reality, there wasn’t a problem. Not on the surface, anyway.
Almost everything associated with the regressive form of autism is the result of an environmental impact meeting a genetic susceptibility. In the case of this new epidemic, heavy metals and thimerosal (a mercury-based preservative used in many baby vaccines) induced autism usually stays masked well after eighteen months of age. And then, the slide can be gradual until one day the child stops talking, stops paying attention, no longer points, and his diet shrinks. Couple those problems with odd repetitive behavior, like flipping a tricycle over to watch the wheels spin instead of riding their first vehicle out of a stroller, and the sum of the parts only begin to hint at the rough seas that lie ahead.
That’s because the social, fine-motor, and speech “delays” the child experiences are themselves delayed from revealing themselves like a time-release capsule. Parents are caught off guard, unaware that something serious is changing inside their child. When they learn what has really been going on, they either deny that this is happening to him or her, or the spouses start to blame each other’s family tree for the flawed DNA. Guilt and denial are merely two of the myriad emotions that overwhelm parents at the onset of the disorder. But they shouldn’t feel guilty for being unable to spot the signs of autism earlier. Most doctors can’t either.
Pediatricians, for the most part, are neither trained nor equipped to pick up on the subtle clues of autism. Fridrik’s doctor, one of the best pediatricians in New York City, failed to notice the behavioral delays, as well. It wasn’t until the boy started talking and then stopped abruptly did the doctor notice something odd; he didn’t act upon that suspicion until the next visit some four months later when Fridrik had regressed further. Nor did the first speech therapist notice the signs right away.
Parents of autistic children do not only become the de facto advocate for their child, but over time they need to become experts in his or her learning and social deficits, as well as the progress he or she makes from that point forward.
Looking back at Fridrik’s regression, one of the first and most subtle signs that he soon would become PDD was face-recognition. I am not talking about choosing a happy face from a sad one—he never lost that ability—but something much weirder and more frightening. After more than a year of mapping his mother’s Asian face, she of Filipino descent, he no longer could recognize her: not from point blank range. He also had trouble with his dad, who as a light-skinned Norwegian is the polar opposite of the mother in terms of looks.
What should parents of infants and newborns do with respect to ramping up their knowledge of what signs to look for that something might be amiss with their child? Or that the delays could manifest into an autism spectrum disorder (ASD)? To start with, parents should go onto the CDC’s web site or conduct an Internet search for the list of baby-infant milestones. These are generally broken down into six, twelve, eighteen and twenty-four month groups. If a child is not achieving a couple of the milestones, make a note of it and start to research potential causes for the delays. Also, consult the kid’s physician.
Moreover, parents must get to know their children early on and often. They must note when they speak, walk, draw with crayons, point and respond to their name. They must also note when things begin to slip and regress or stop altogether. Timing is everything in treating autism. The sooner parents know, the sooner they can learn about this dreadful and devastating disorder and seek treatment, which ranges from speech therapy and Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), to changing diets, giving supplements, and running the child through a detoxification regime. The detox begins with glutathione —nature’s chemical for filtering out heavy metals toxicity from the brain and vital organs—and continues with chelation therapy.
The “golden window” of treating autistic children with such a program is three to five years old, as stated by Dr. Jaquelyn McCandless in her breakthrough book, “Children with Starving Brains: A Medical Treatment Guide for Autism Spectrum Disorder.” DAN (Defeat Autism Now!) doctors who treat ASD children call this book their bible. I have learned that on top of early detection, the one silver lining for raising and treating an autistic child is that as a parent you are forced to spend most of your non-working hours with the child. You are thrust into the dual role of parent and best friend.
James Ottar Grundvig is the father of an autistic child. He lives and works in New York City. See Grundvig's earlier article Autism’s Razor: Epidemic’s Cause Found.